Corbyn's nationalisation lunacy has killed Talk Talk's deal, hammered BT's share price & your pension. Hundreds of internet companies have taken a hit overnight & are now making plans to quit the UK if necessary, hitting jobs & the country's tax take.
Labour broadband pledge stalls TalkTalk sale
A deal to sell FibreNation to CityFibre has been postponed until after the general election, Sky News understands.
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Mark Kleinman
City editor
@MarkKleinmanSky
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Friday 15 November 2019 09:26, UK
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The Labour Party's pledge to nationalise broadband provision across Britain by 2030 has forced TalkTalk to postpone the sale of its full-fibre infrastructure arm until after next month's general election.
Sky News has learnt that the FTSE-250 company is to delay the signing of a deal to sell FibreNation, which has ambitions of delivering ultrafast broadband to 3m homes, for at least a month.
A deal was on the brink of being signed on Thursday night for FibreNation to be sold to CityFibre Holdings, a venture part-owned by the Wall Street bank Goldman Sachs.
The agreement would have been announced alongside TalkTalk's half-year results on Friday morning.
- Instead, TalkTalk said in its earnings announcement that it remained in "ongoing advanced negotiations with interested parties".
CityFibre had been vying with Macquarie, the Australian infrastructure investor, to secure a transaction, but in recent days had edged ahead of its rivals in the race to buy the business.
Labour's announcement that it would nationalise BT Group's broadband infrastructure division, Openreach, has stunned the British telecoms industry, with one trade association, Tech UK, describing it as "a huge setback for the UK's digital economy".
Labour put the cost at £20bn - a figure that was dismissed by people close to BT, who argued that it would be multiples of that sum.